Just to make things more fun, here in BC at least not sure about other provinces, the local supply authority (BC Hydro) uses Brown as L1, and forbids the use of black wires anywhere. As far as I know, this is only within their distribution network, and once it reaches customer supply it is normal Red Black Blue White Green colours.
I guess that's the biggest problem with "standards" - everyone wants theirs to be THE standard !!
Here in the UK, for domestic single-phase wiring, it used to be RED-HOT, BLACK-COLD, the "earth" connection is uncovered, but we used piping GREEN-GRASSY EARTH.
Now it's BROWN-HOT (A bit "earthy"), BLUE-NEUTRAL (because blue is a "vibrant" colour), and GREEN/YELLOW STRIPED for EARTH (isn't earth coloured brown, it is in my garden).
I'm beginning the think a much better "standard" would be to use one colour throughout, and use cable idents from the schematics, which incidentally, never showed cable colours !!
Possibly the best "standard" that could be adopted is....
RED-DANGER, this wired could be HOT at times, not always though, so check it out with your meter.
BLACK-SAFE, this wire is most often not dangerous, usually connected directly, or indirectly to ground, but could have become disconnected, so check it out with your meter anyway.
GREEN or GREEN/YELLOW, this wire is nearly always safe to touch, its colour indicates it is connected directly to ground, and should have no nasty surprises on it, but it might have got disconnected, so check it out with your meter anyway.